As I Die Silently
by Arwyn Atreides
Summary: One teenager finds out that he will never live to see his high school graduation, that he'll die before he ever even glimpses eighteen. He hasn't told his friends of his condition. He knows that his time is coming and he has no one to turn to right now...
1. Chapter One

As I Die Silently Seventeen. Prom. College. Freedom. Friends. Looking down at those eighteen candles, one for good luck, your name in icing with 'Happy Birthday' above it, you think of all that. You get to be carfree, think you're immortal. I don't. I look down at that cake, the candles, icing, even the little Duel Monsters figurines and I can't stop thinking I'll never see anything like this again. I won't live to see eighteen. I don't have to worry about gettin a date and tux for prom, I have to worry about getting a casket and tombstone. All my friends are here singing 'Happy Birthday'. It's only a minute, the cake in front of me, my friends, the happiness, the laughter, all of it, just a minute. Another minute I want to last forever. Take a deep breath. Blow out those eighteen candles, one for good luck. Another minute I'll never get back. Everyone whoops, hollers, and claps. I smile wide and the lights are turned back on. Another minute they take for granted.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
You never realize just how precious those moments in life are until one day you go to the doctor for a regular check-up, you get a blood test and then a week later the doctor calls you and tells you that you have one of the most serious life threatening diseases known to man. She tells you that you won't live to see your graduation from high school. Only then do you realizejust how many minutes you've wasted. And even with the phone to your ear you count how many seconds you're wasting. It's late at night and i'm not sleeping, like everyone else is, I'm up sitting in front of my computer, writing this. I don't know, but I feel that the world ought to know my story. Maybe there is another kid out there who was told that they won't live to go to their prom and that they have only so many minutes left to live. I sit here at my computer, counting minutes. Minutes I'll never get back. And now i'm going to wirte about all those minutes i wasted.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


	2. Chapter Two

Sixteen.   
  
That's the immortal age. When you think that you're halfway to adult but still able to mooch off your parents. That's when you feel you should be allowed to roam free till three AM but your parents should still not make you go get a job to pay for all your partying. Sixteen was when it all started; at least it's the closet root I can find.  
  
Friday, Partyday as Bakura and Malik called it, which was when I went with them to some odd party at some obscure place. We'd hang and do what we wanted and had what we called fun. Being that Bakura and Malik are at least twenty-one they bought the drinks and they bought the drugs and they made the plans, and me? I was just the "good looking guy who knew how to have a good time", that's what Malik had said the first day I was invited to join them.  
  
I must have tried about a hundred different drugs in just that one school year. It was all about the newest hottest best things, no one cared about the negatives to, there was nothing but fun. To us there were no negatives. But by Sunday, Hangoverday, night we were all ready for work and school. A cycle of abuse and recovery.  
  
The rest of the group didn't know about us and our wild weekends. It was our secret, our own group. We were bound together by drugs, drinks, and sex. I know how negative it is and all but I won't lie, there is nothing like being high on Ecstasy and having two other people touching you and knowing they are high too and you are touching them. Good feelings all around. We had a solid bond.   
  
Yes I might as well say it here since I'm telling you everything else, I'm gay. I'm a homosexual teenage male. It feels strange to write that, to have it in front of me, out in the open. I keep turning around trying to make sure that there is no one behind me reading this, learning my secrets. But I know that someday someone will know these secrets of mine. It's strange that way, you hide something, keep it from everyone for so long and then you find that there are more important things in life and that secret doesn't seem so big anymore.  
  
It's late I need sleep. 


	3. Chapter Three

Today brought more medicine, poking, and prodding. I gave myself to science. I figured, when I was diagnosed, that I might be able to help someone, maybe a lot more, by being part of tests and research to find a cure. So lucky for you I'll be able to work on my journal more, because the tests are interfering with school.  
  
My friends think I have a cold or something like that.  
  
Why do I lie?   
  
When we're little we are taught to always tell the truth. You remember when you lied about that crayon on the wall, said that it was someone else, and then you felt bad because the other got in trouble? You remember when you finally fessed up and told the teacher, she told you that you would feel much better because you had told the truth and "the truth will always set you free"? Yeah, I remember.  
  
You are supposed to tell your friends the truth. You and your friends have a bond; you're supposed to be able to tell them all those things that you can't even tell your mom and dad. But there are these topics that you just don't talk about with your friends.  
  
Why aren't we taught that? Why didn't anyone write that stuff down? There should be a list somewhere, a site, a book, SOMETHING! ANYTHING! Anything that tells us what we shouldn't say. We are taught to look before we cross the street, alphabet, multiplication tables. That's all good and nice but what of this? We should know this!  
  
Why are we thrown out into the world to fend for ourselves, to find these things out all on our own? Didn't they love us enough to tell us these things? We are the children; we were supposed to be nurtured. We were supposed to be taught. 


	4. Chapter Four

Words On A Page  
  
I have been looking at some of my old things lately, all those minutes I've lost. I've seen pictures from when I was six, at least until last year. Well I have some pictures from them, but they don't get to be in the family albums. No one wants to see me with a shot in one hand a cigarette in the other and guy and I touching tongues, yeah I haven't showed these to my mother.  
  
But I started writing up little notes to go under certain pictures, I'm planning to have a photo album at the wake and group photo of my friends and I and a picture of my mom, dad and I put in my casket with me. It's weird looking at those seeing all of us so happy, smiling. Seeing it all, knowing that I can't relive all those happy moments.   
  
I found a lot of things when I went looking around. In fact I found a few old journals I had. I even found one I kept during my partying. Reading it feels so strange, like reading someone else's journal.  
  
Here's one of the strangest, from a time when I was partying the most.  
  
[][][]  
  
Mmm fruit punch Kool Aid to add a sugar high to that orgasmic feeling bubbling up in me.  
  
Just another ramp on the highway of hi. Kool Aid washes the pills down.   
  
A red current of sugary lava bringing those pillz, that make spots explode behind your eyes, into you.  
  
Now that's a real thrill!!  
  
Fuck roller coasters give me pillz, spiked Kool Aid and two other hot bodies yearning for an ultimate orgasm, that's what I want.  
  
Give it to me pure and condensed!  
  
Make it just another of the hundreds of fun creating pillz out there and then slip it into my Kool Aid.  
  
Smile at me and kiss me and let me taste that concoction on your tongue.  
  
That's what I want!  
  
That holy deception.  
  
Yeah baby that's what I want give it to me give it to me hard!!!  
  
MAKE MY MIND REEL!!!  
  
MAKE MY MIND SCREAM!!!!!  
  
That's all I've ever wanted!!  
  
Someone to cut me up,  
  
Stick needles in me,   
  
Tell me they love me,  
  
Whisper lies into my ear as they rape me,  
  
Fill me up with liquor,  
  
Stuff me full of pills.  
  
Just kill me baby!  
  
Just cut me open and eat me from the inside, these things do it for you but I want you, all of you.   
  
I want both of you in me around me, battering me, bruising me, bleeding me! That's it!!!  
  
That's it!!  
  
It's all in the delivery!  
  
Getting my hopes up!!  
  
Then breaking me in half!  
  
Making me cry!  
  
Making me want to die!!  
  
That's it!!  
  
That's how I like it!!  
  
They don't know what it is!!!  
  
They tell me to fight it!!! There's hate in you kiss.  
  
That's what I want to taste!  
  
HATE HATE HATE!!!   
  
MORE MORE MORE!!!  
  
Yea that's right I'm a WHORE WHORE WHORE!!   
  
I give myself to this holy sweet deception!  
  
Weekly is its repetition.  
  
I don't care about what it does, that pain all over.  
  
It's that few seconds of bliss that I live for!!  
  
MORE MORE MORE!!  
  
It's what I have with them.  
  
This holy sweet deception.  
  
It's the bond that shall never be broken  
  
[][][]  
  
I look at those words scrawled on a page and it sickens me to think that that was my hand that wrote it, that those were my thoughts, that my mind was that sick. It feels as if that poison that was feasting on my brain is now feasting on my body. 


	5. Chapter Five

My mother has taken to hovering around me as much as she can, she watches the doctors, hopeful that they'll say that I'm getting better, she watches me eat, making sure I never eat anything that hasn't been approved by the doctors, and if I hadn't specifically told her not to, she would watch me while I sleep.  
  
I know it's probably harder on her than it is for me, but I can't all of this constant obsessing over me.   
  
I coughed once yesterday and she jumped and called the doctor. She made the doctor come over and wouldn't let him leave until he gave her the thumbs up that I was ok. He came back to today to put me on an IV. Now I have to wheel this stupid clumsy thing around. It's such a pain in the ass but I think I'll be able to deal.   
  
I think I should be called Pincushion now, have to have blood taken at least once a day to check how my body is reacting to certain treatments. You'd think that since I'm so sick they SHOULDN'T be taking so much blood from me, but I guess that's probably why I'm not a doctor. Anyhow, I have an army of pills to take and a schedule for when I have to take them. What little life I have left is being run by these stupid pills.   
  
Pills and paperwork, that's all I see now, my lawyer was here today as well, to get my will put together and set and ready. Unfortunately my mom couldn't take staying the room listening to it for long, she left halfway through. The lawyer also seems to be a little on edge; he confided in me that he had never had to go over the will of someone as young as me without a parent being the one who was doing the real orchestrating. He even told me that he felt bad that I had to do this. He's pretty nice, I mean he barely knew me but he seemed to genuinely feel sorry for me.   
  
There are so many arrangements that had to be taken care of. It's nothing like TV where someone dies and then magically their funeral is set up and goes through without a problem. It's weird to have to order your own casket, tombstone and burial plot. Mom can't understand why I chose to do it myself but I know that she would never get any of these things done. She's really strong and whatnot but I know she'd probably crack under all of this. I don't think I could bear seeing my mother cry, especially if she was doing something to help me out.   
  
Unfortunately all this work is making me really tired really fast so I'm going to go to sleep. I will write again tomorrow. 


	6. Chapter Six

What do I see look in the mirror now? I see a ghost soon to be.   
  
The doctors have stopped speaking to me. They even try their best to smile when speaking to me. They're telling my mom and I can see by the way she bites her bottom lip and looks at me as if I were piece of thin glass. So I guess I'm not going to get to write too much more.  
  
Funny, I've been telling you all this time that the end is so close for me but even as I sit here, in the dark, I can't believe it's so close. I'll confess I'm crying as I write this.   
  
So I started telling you before how this all happened, I know I stalled but I might as well tell you now, seeing as how I may not have another opportunity.   
  
It had to have been that one time Marik, Bakura and I went to a party at the house of someone I had never met. There was the usual sea of alcohol, mounds of pills, and corners full of anonymous sex. Of course I was drinking and smoking.   
  
Parties are always so unpredictable, but that's what we predict, isn't it? You go to these parties because you know that they're wild and that's what you want. They're your escape from the dull boring schedule that you have to adhere to when you're at school or work.  
  
I remember that night. Funny how that memory was so fuzzy until now, suddenly it's crystal clear.   
  
The air was thick with the smell of people, liquor and smoke from different drugs. It was warm and there was a fuzzy feeling to everything, it's an effect of an interaction of the three I was taking at the time. Marik had found some cute blonde boy with long fingers and a perfect smile. He had the blonde keeping him company, which left me with Bakura.  
  
Bakura took a sip of tequila, leaned into me and kissed me deeply. The tequila was mixed with the lime and salt he had taken as well. His hand slide up my neck, over my shoulder and then down my back. Pulling my closer he ground into me. I moaned softly into his mouth. He gently broke the kiss. His eyes weren't quite as focused as they should have, he was very hi and drunk.   
  
"Let's take this to a room, how bout that Hon, sound good to you?" He whispered, to me as he slipped his hand that was on my back down to my butt. I smiled.   
  
"Sure, Babes. Whatever gets you goin." I licked his lips and he slipped his hand into mine and started making his way to a room on the second floor.   
  
We looked in three rooms before we found an empty one. We did some more drugs and had sex before there was a knock at the door.   
  
"You boys all dressed and decent?" it was Marik. We laughed as he came in, we greeted him happily. "I brought my friend," the blonde came from behind him. "And my friend comes bearing gifts."   
  
The blonde smiled at me and winked as he walked in. "You're definitely a hottie." He handed a little black velour bag to Marik, who took Bakura aside. "You wanna have some REAL fun?" his grey blue eyes glittered as he produced a black bag, identical to the one he had given to Marik. He took a syringe from it.   
  
"I'm not sure. What is it?" I wasn't sure what it was but I felt a little cautious.   
  
"Just some new stuff, I guarantee you'll like it." He smiled as he laid the syringe in his lap and wrapped a bandana around his arm. I watched as he slide the needle into the bulging vein in the crook of his elbow.   
  
He pulled on the end of the syringe, draw blood from his arm to mingle with the powder in the syringe. I watched the silvery white mix with the red. He injected some of it back in to his arm and then he took the bandana off his arm, after taking the needle out of his arm.   
  
"You ready?" He said smiling at me as he rolled up my sleeve and tied the bandana around my arm. There was some little voice in my head that was telling me not to go through with this but it was muffled. My mind was a daze. There were no sensible thought allowed. It was all a haze, fuzz.  
  
I felt the needle break the skin and I watched as he inject the rest of the ruby red liquid into me. I settled back and waited for the bliss to start.   
  
But that was when this terror began. So that's how it happened, that blonde had the disease and he gave it to me. Just think in one second I annihilated so many years. You don't really realize those types of things until it's too late and you're looking back.   
  
So in case I don't get to write tomorrow  
  
There was a dull after 'tomorrow' was typed. 


	7. Side Note: Guesses

Hey a side note for the people reading this story, I really wanna call you 'fans' lol, I'll refrain  
  
So hey a lot of you have been askin me who this character is. A lot of you have even been guessing, so here's the thing I wanna see what you people think so hey email me or IM me or somehow get your message to me, tho I'll prefer an IM watevr works for you, on who you think this character is. ^^  
  
Jounochi  
  
Ryou  
  
Yuugi  
  
Odeon  
  
Seto  
  
Mokuba (quick someone call the cops if this is the right person)  
  
Tristan  
  
Duke 


	8. The Poll results

Hey people I'm sorry I haven't replied to you guys for sometime, my email was been a b***h [you figure that one out lol] and someone hacked my internet account and that is why I haven't updated for this long but here are the result to the lil poll lmfao  
  
Duke was in third, he had a whole TWO votes Ok I guess he'll just have to sit in a corner and weep cuz he isn't too popular, or maybe he should whoop and holler for joy that you didn't think he should have that fate lmfao [I know I know I can't help but try and make my cheesy jokes!!]  
  
Yugi was tied with Duke, he had only TWO votes Well wow ok!! I have no idea what to say to that. There's a lil voice telling me to be a bit surprised at that, though that's the same voice that tells me to stick my tongue on cold poles, so forgive me if I ignore it.  
  
Tristan was tied with the first two as well because again he had only TWO votes Wow I'm seeing a trend!! Or is that just my eyesight getting worse, CRAP!!!  
  
Ryou came in second with FIVE votes I almost feel bad for him lolz, I thought you guys liked him better than to ask for him to have this kind of fate!! I'm just kidding, I know I should just stick to drama, comedy isn't my strong point. -Awkward silence follows- OK then moving on!!  
  
AND -drum roll- IN FIRST PLACE IS...  
  
Joey with SEVEN votes Wow I wonder if it's because you like the character so much and because you like Joey so much that you wanted him to be all that great, or if you just hate him and want him to die, lol, or if you think he's just that stupid that he'd do stuff like this!  
  
Again thank you all very much for all of your support and reviews and yada yada all that good stuff! Well here it is what you have all been waiting for the unveiling!! 


	9. Chapter Seven

Students gather to mourn the loss of a local teenager, who was found dead, in his bedroom, last night.  
  
He was a good friend of the Dueling champion Yugi Muto. The young star was quoted as saying "We wish we had known, I wish I could have been there to help him through." Afterward Mr. Muto began to cry and could no longer answer questions.  
  
The boy's other friends expressed the same feelings and amount of grief. The mother told us, "My son knew that he was sick for quite some time, he didn't want anyone to be sad because of his illness. He was a brave man. He always thought of the other people around himself first."  
  
The teenager had set aside money that will be used to aid research to find a cure for the illness that took such a wonderful person from us, far before it was his time. There will even be a fund in his name.  
  
A memorial will be held tomorrow night at his former high school. For further information contact." the newsperson goes on to say other things.  
  
In Loving Memory of Tristan Taylor  
  
A Great Friend and  
  
Son  
  
You will be missed by all who knew you.  
  
As  
  
I  
  
Die  
  
Silently 


End file.
